Shall Gods Be Said to Thump the Clouds
Shall Gods Be Said to Thump the Clouds - meaning Summary
Gods Reduced to Stone
The poem questions human habit of explaining natural phenomena by projecting emotions and actions onto gods. It rejects domestic or sentimental images of deity—watering gardens or nursing lovers—and challenges anthropomorphic explanations for thunder, rain and rainbows. Instead the speaker proposes a starker vision: gods as stone, mute yet resonant, whose presence would be literal and impersonal. The closing image asks for a different, more material language to account for nature.
Read Complete AnalysesShall gods be said to thump the clouds When clouds are cursed by thunder, Be said to weep when weather howls? Shall rainbows be their tunics' colour? When it is rain where are the gods? Shall it be said they sprinkle water From garden cans, or free the floods? Shall it be said that, venuswise, An old god's dugs are pressed and pricked, The wet night scolds me like a nurse? It shall be said that gods are stone. Shall a dropped stone drum on the ground, Flung gravel chime? Let the stones speak With tongues that talk all tongues.
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